Don’t give up. There can be hope in the midst of chronic pain. Create a new chronic pain perspective.

Finding Hope In The Midst of Chronic Pain

I’ve had chronic pain for way too long, and I finally understand that I need to work on changing my mindset to help my health. Why it took me ten years to figure this out, I do not know. But I’m thankful I did, and now I want to do something productive with my good and my bad experiences with chronic pain by helping others find the information and encouragement they can use in their lives.

A LITTLE BACKGROUND

I began to have migraines at the age of 7. In my teenage years, doctors told me that they would go away after menopause, but those years are long gone, and I still suffer from migraines but mostly during the change of seasons. Thankfully, many treatments for headaches have changed for the better than what I endured as a child guinea pig back in the 1970s. I remember drinking straight black coffee because of the caffeine. It was a new trick to try. Someone is always telling you of new remedies that their Great Aunt Heloise had success with in curing an “enter whatever ailment here.” 🙂

Anyway, I’m not so much of a guinea pig anymore for migraine treatments since medicines are now are capable of stopping a migraine if taken in time. Now, it’s all about the back and nerve pain which I’ve had since 2007. When it started, the low back pain and sciatica I endured were short spans of time, but it always resolved itself with rest and medication. Slowly, it reared its ugly head all the time. 24/7. Now, many people still offer new remedies, and I still try almost everything that comes my way within reason. My treatment routine is continually evolving to determine what treatment works the best at that moment.

Chronic pain is exhausting.

I want to walk through the weariness with you and hopefully lift you up. I plan to blog about

my chronic pain journey and how it has affected my life and my faith

meditations, scriptures, prayers, and music

organizations that can help you along your way

chronic pain advocacy information

anything else that arises from questions I receive if I think it might be helpful to others

Sometimes I’ll carry you, sometimes you’ll carry me, and sometimes our faith in God will carry us both, but together we can have a joy-filled life. That is my vision and my motivation for this blog.

You are my motivation for this blog.

It’s hard to find current legitimate statistics on chronic pain and suicide because of under-reporting, but in 2015, a Psychology Today article by Judy Foreman stated that chronic pain sufferers were found to be twice as likely to commit suicide than the average individual without any chronic illness. This number was BEFORE the CDC released their new opioid prescribing guidelines and the DEA cracked down on EVERYONE! Imagine what the legitimate chronic pain patient is going through now trying to get a valid prescription prescribed and filled with the government getting in between the doctor and patient relationship. But that’s for a blog on a different day. : )

I’m sure the stats would go up if the researchers included all invisible illnesses. Having your pain or illness symptoms doubted equally destroy your self-confidence as does the actual physical illness that wrecks your body.

Chronic pain is any pain that lasts for more than three months. Keeping a detailed pain diary can help decipher your symptoms and improve the doctor’s ability to see the big picture of how chronic pain affects your life.

Chronic pain affects everything.

Living with chronic pain wears you down because you can never get recharged emotionally or physically without a support system around you, like online chronic pain communities such as my Validating Chronic Pain blog.

If you have ideas of harming yourself, I beg you to reach out to someone immediately either by calling or texting with the links provided within this post or dialing 911.

People do not want to mention suicide because it might “give someone the idea to do it,” but with today’s political climate in the middle of our healthcare, I believe we must talk about it to raise awareness; to STOP the suicides from the undertreated chronic pain in our world; not just our country but other countries as well.

I’ve felt the pain of wishing I wouldn’t wake up in the morning, but my favorite Bible verse helped me through, “Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning. (Psalm 30:5, New American Standard Bible)

I wanted the physical pain to stop, but no one seemed to know how to do that other than prescribing pills that sometimes seem to do more harm than good or suggest treatments not covered by insurance after traditional treatments failed. I wanted the emotional pain to stop because I felt isolated, I felt doubted, and like such a burden to my family.

I’m sure you have felt it too because depression usually comes along with the chronic pain and it will eat away at you if you don’t plan and surround yourself with a great support system. I believe my support system of my deep faith in God, my family and meeting others with chronic pain and sharing our journeys is why I never acted on my thoughts of suicide.

There is hope in the midst of pain.

This blog is part of my healing. It will be a learning process all the way.

I want you to be validated; which means to me that you feel important, believed, loved, accepted. I want to be part of your support team. Most importantly, I want you to acknowledge yourself as valuable. Valuable enough to stay on this earth a little longer and find hope. Valuable enough to seek out professional help for the emotional side effects of chronic pain and maybe to consider us helping each other along the way.

I encourage you to comment below but please do so with mercy. I am a real human being with feelings. If I am honest with myself, I know my blog will never be perfect, and I hope you can forgive that because my all intentions are good.
I also encourage you to email me your pain stories because telling your story will heal you and your story can heal someone else because it empowers you both.

Freebie Alert

Ask questions too. Also, if you send me your mailing address with your comment or story, I will send out a small envelope with a pain warrior bracelet and information about the U. S. Pain Foundation.

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11 thoughts on “Finding Hope In The Midst of Chronic Pain”

Cindy, this is Mark Z. I recall now that you said you did a blog on Chronic Pain. Somehow in the midst of life, I tucked it back in my memory. You are a very gifted writer! THANK you for sharing this. You are very courageous to do so. As with so many Intractable Pain Patients, I wish I could pray your pain away. I can pray, but God in His Wisdom has decided that we need other members of the “Body of Christ” to stand beside one another to encourage each other like Barnabas did for the Apostle Paul. I hope you can sense our desire to bring that kind of encouragement to you, though it is delivered quite imperfectly. Cindy, thank you for sharing your heart in this blog. It is a real blessing to me.

I posted it a bit ago called My Fall Feb 9th 1998 on long term disability since . About 5 years later, I was having marriage probs and then coming to realize I would never work again. Deep depression set in and I had it all planned out od on my meds and slit my wrists. So I cried out to God to help me or it was suicide and it has being a steady journey with my Lord and King. So now I have time for prayer , Bible reading and visiting the elderly.